Review | Time Room – Something New

Label: Self-released

‘Something New’ is the debut EP from Minneapolis three piece Time Room and they say of themselves “We make anxious, angular noise rock/art punk sounds inspired by themes of self-doubt, social isolation, fear of death and suicidal ideation.” This sense of anxiousness is immediate with the cutting guitar tone stabbing through your speaker, sounding like a bandsaw on metal, in opener ‘Something New’. When the rest of the band kicks in it hits like a freight train with the bass of Tyler Russell vibrating your speaker. The verse allows things to calm a little and has almost a grunge feel to it at odds with the heavy stoner choruses with the sense of unease laced throughout.

After the heaviness of ‘Something New’, Time Room wastes little time in grabbing your attention with the runaway abandon of ‘No.1’ which is a call to arms for the mosh pit. This paean to 80’s new wave punk is punctuated with the chant along verse of “Who are you? You are no one!”

‘Wound Up’ eases off the accelerator a little to bring you some angular grunge with the drums taking a battering throughout courtesy of the heavy hands of Justin Fischler.

‘Freeway’ sees guitarist/vocalist Ben Richer coat his guitar tone in fuzz for this hypnotic stoner rock track. A little faster than your classic stoner rock, you can’t help but feel the sense of urgency through the music like Time Room just need to get the music out there. ‘Concrete Man’ comes like a change in programming. The phaser on the guitar and the lighter drumming connect to create this borderline psychedelic take on punk. Flitting between the lightness and a wall of distortion in the chorus, Time Room certainly knows how to keep it interesting and also show that they can cave in your speaker at the drop of a plectrum.

‘Bleep Bloop’ and ‘Snowed In’ come as modern takes on that 80’s new wave sound of bands like Devo but with everything turned up to 10 and with enough weight to put your speakers to the test.

‘Projector’ rounds out proceedings with Dinosaur Jr. style explorations of distortion freak outs while always ready to return to the solid foundations laid by Russell and Fischler. Flirting in and out of grunge, punk and good old fashioned rock with all the weight of a bulldozer, Time Room are something special. The fact that there’s only three of them creating this gigantic noise is just icing on the cake.